Thankful Tuesdays #6 – To the city I love the most

Written as part of 52 Weeks of Gratitude Challenge which I’m attempting this year.

The City I Live In

Week 7 – Thankful Tuesdays

It was on a Tuesday morning (or night) that I first met you, dear city of my birth, and broke the calmness, greeting you with a cry. Perhaps you might not have noticed my greeting, with so many others who did as well. But I’ll be honest; I did not think I’d end up choosing you over my hometown. I am thankful to you that you accepted me as one of your many citizens.

I’m thankful to your weather, firstly. This “never too hot, never too cold” weather of yours is what makes me love you more than anything else. It’s what I’m used to, and what I love. Not to forget those sudden showers regardless of the season, catching everyone off guard. I love the rains, and I’m thankful I can enjoy them no matter how sudden.

I’m thankful that you are the garden city. Growing up in a residential area, I’ve always seen the green part of you, and loved that. The gardens and the parks that are there in you are what make you different from other cities I’ve visited. And it’s that welcoming hand to nature that helps these botanical places flourish in your land. Lalbagh and Cubbon Park are places I don’t mind visiting umpteen times. I’m thankful that even now, I work in a place where greenery is all around me. I’ve looked at beauty that more than the trash thrown everywhere by carelessness and recklessness. I’m also sad that I have, by accident, joined in that carelessness.

I’m thankful to the potholes that now abound your roads. They’ve taught me to take life’s bumps with a smile (literally). I’m thankful to the traffic that is more than one can take at times. It has taught me patience (more than I need, but can’t be helped) which has proven useful, especially when some of your citizens use those choice words that tempt me to reply with words of that ilk. I’m also thankful to those motorists who have sent me head first onto the ground, coming the wrong way and hitting me from behind, at times even on the footpath. They’ve taught me to stand up for myself. (They’ve also taught me sarcasm, which helps when replying to them, or thanking them.)

I’m thankful that there are many delicacies that you are famous for, and some of them I love to eat. Bisibelebaath, kesaribaath, maddur vada, neer dosa and kosumbri are some that come immediately to mind. Then of course, the usual fare of idli, vada and sambar; or masala dosa; or poori and such; and not to forget… that amazing filter kaapi. Though they are there in most menus across the country, there is something different, something better when it comes out of a Bangalore kitchen. There are few restaurants that don’t compare to any other anywhere.

I’m thankful for places to hang out with friends, like Brigade Road or Commercial Street, or the many malls that are now there. But the place I’m most thankful for is Church Street perhaps, for this bookworm finds the most food there, spending many hours lost in the bookstores like Bookworm, Blossoms’, Gangaram’s and Higginbotham’s. And when needed, also in those malls which have Crossword and Landmark outlets.

I’m glad to have been born, and now staying, in you, Bangalore. It has been fun, and a little funny, addressing you almost as a person as I wrote this. But maybe it is because of that, that you feel like a friend to me more than anything else. There might be many more things I’m grateful to you for, but these many come to mind right now. Thank you.

Image Sources (via Wikimedia Commons): Cubbon Park | Filter Kaapi | Blossoms Book House

(© 10^th February 2015)

Vinay Leo R.

Poetry & writing to me are to me, a breath of fresh air in a life that is sometimes covered by the smoke of sorrow or self doubt. They also become the sweets I share to celebrate when life offers me a reason to. But most of all, they are to me, my life. For each word I write is a piece of my heart, a thought that just had to find its way into the world.